Pets and Party skills

Tricky - I know that pets aren't part of the party; there are reasons I am sure - possibly the fear of skills like Order of Pain being used with them. Unfortunately, with the tougher missions and the use of PvE skills to keep the party alive, pets are missing out.

For example, desipte my pet having a decent AL of 80, 540 health and Call of Protection at 16 BM (21 damage reduction) it still is ripped apart fast at high levels. Part of the reason for hthis is that many skills protect or heal party only. While the tank runs in and shouts "Save Yourselves!", with a Seed of Life on him the rest of the party weathers the storm - yet the poor pet, who is actually better armoured than most and has whopping damage reduction, is chopped to bits.

When the pet system was developed there were comparatively few party-wide skills, and certainly the difficulty of the encounters was much less. I guess I'd like to see some change made to the system so that pets are more viable in PvE. They've been helped a great deal thanks to the pet controls and some buffs, but foes are getting tougher, and the tools handed to us to help face them don't apply to the pets.

Perhaps "party and companions" could be used for PvE skills, rather than just "party".

Your pet is getting ripped apart? WTF? On my ranger his hearty crab is doin shizzle loads of damage and taking it as well (my pet usually lived longe rthen anyone else)...all i used was Symbiotic Bond and Call of protection for defense...

That's why Beast mastery skills exists.

i think it would be only fair, why not?